New Yorkers will learn who will be their next mayor this Tuesday, in a contest that will determine who governs and protects the country's largest city at a time when the former president has threatened to deploy armed forces to the urban center.
Against that backdrop, New York has experienced a race for mayor that has pitted two distinctly opposing Democratic figures against each other. The election has turned into an increasingly bitter showdown, laced with alleged racism and Islamophobia, but it is the ideological divide between the two leading candidates that could have significant consequences for how the Democratic party fares in next year's congressional races.
On the left side is the democratic socialist, the 34-year-old democratic socialist whose rapid ascent and people-powered movement has brought international attention. Representing the old guard is Andrew Cuomo, the ex- New York governor now campaigning independently – and benefiting from the backing of ultra-rich donors and corporations.
As the election approaches, it is Mamdani, the former longshot who defeated his opponent in the party primary who is firmly installed as the leading candidate. The candidate, who has campaigned on a platform of affordability and pledged to halt rent increases for about two million city residents, has led Cuomo by significant margins in every poll conducted in the fall, and it is very much the younger man's election to lose.
Yet, the former governor, who resigned as governor in recent years amid accusations of sexual harassment, has stated clearly he will battle to the finish, and not necessarily in an fair fashion. He has trashed his opponent's goals as unrealistic, and in recent days chuckled along as a broadcaster made Islamophobic remarks about Mamdani, who is Muslim. Recently, the independent was widely condemned as bigoted after sharing an artificial intelligence video that included a slew of racial caricatures and showed Mamdani freeing a group of criminals.
This represents a rather grubby conclusion to an race that could be key to the path that the Democratic party, floundering in its response to Trump's power moves, takes in the coming years.
Should Mamdani secures a clear victory, the party establishment who have declined to support his bid will be compelled to address a message that has resonated with Americans' frustration at inequality, inflation and the political elite. It would be difficult for the Senate leader and the House leader not to embrace at least some of the candidate's ambitious ideas about affordability, given the fresh face has created an excitement within the Democratic ranks arguably not witnessed since Bernie Sanders ran for president eight years ago.
Conversely, should Cuomo, who had been expected to win easily in the Democratic primary, complete a surprising riches-to-rags-to-riches win, it could cement the party's current model of considered, lackluster resistance – a strategy that has infuriated the party base. A New York rejection of Mamdani's progressive, positive message could persuade Schumer and Jeffries that the wisest course is to stick to the political center – even as surveys show the current iteration of the Democratic party is deeply unpopular nationwide.
Residents of New York appear to favor the progressive agenda. Polls show that Mamdani supporters are far more enthusiastic about their choice than Cuomo backers, something that has been evident throughout the campaign. The candidate's snappy videos on social media, his hopeful outlook for New York and his willingness to actually get out and meet people in the city has attracted an force of over fifty thousand supporters, many of them youth or new participants.
However, the former governor, in his late sixties, continues to fight. And with the stakes against him, the ex-leader has turned to negative campaigning in the final days.
Following extensive launching various attacks at his opponent to see what might stick, Cuomo has concentrated on attacking Mamdani personally. He has called Mamdani, who was of Ugandan origin to Indian parents, an "radical", and popped up on conservative media for an discussion with Maria Bartiromo, where the candidate asserted the city “will not survive” Mamdani as city leader. It hit bottom recently, when Cuomo laughed along and said “that’s another problem” after a broadcaster said Mamdani would “cheer” another 9/11-style incident.
This strategy echoes much of what the former president, who has sent the military reserves to the capital and warned to take similar action to NYC, has said about Mamdani, and maybe that shouldn’t come as a surprise. A group of wealthy residents, including some who donated to the Republican in the 2024 election, have invested heavily into trying to get the independent elected, as other powerful voices have urged the Republican candidate to withdraw from the race.
As far as the Cuomo camp, and his billionaire supporters, are concerned, it should not have reached to this. When the assemblyman, one of 150 New York state assembly members, launched his campaign for mayor in October 2024, not many had heard of him, and in truth, few even noticed.
Cuomo, by contrast, eased his way into the contest in this year and became the immediate frontrunner. He was the political heavyweight who apparently held all the advantages. The classic establishment figure, he had married a political dynasty member and worked in Bill Clinton’s administration. He became New York governor in 2011, seventeen years after his father, Mario Cuomo, left office from the same position.
Mamdani, who was elected to the New York state assembly in recently, does not have the same political heritage. But his commitment to providing free buses and free childcare – along with the freeze-the-rent pledge – present a brighter outlook of the future than Cuomo’s dire warnings about “mayhem” and unfettered crime, and his vow to hire more police officers.
Nevertheless, Mamdani has faced difficulties in the final phase, after video surfaced suggesting him implying the NYPD and the IDF were intertwined.
“We have to make clear that when the pressure of the NYPD is on your throat, it’s been influenced by the IDF,” Mamdani said in the recording, filmed at a Democratic Socialists of America convention in recent years. Mamdani, a vocal opponent of Israel who has said the nation is engaging in atrocities in the Palestinian territory, indicated he was questioning cooperative programs between the city police and Israeli forces.
With the election nearing, the candidate seems to have gained sympathy and support, however, for his reaction to Cuomo’s increasing rhetoric.
Mamdani responded to Cuomo’s 9/11 remarks in an emotional video. In it, the candidate remembered how, when he first campaigned for state assembly, a Muslim uncle suggested to him that he did not have to tell people about his Muslim faith. It was a realization, he said, that many Muslim New Yorkers had been taught “again and again”: “That security could only be found in the margins of our community. That it is in those shadows alone where followers of Islam could embrace their true selves, and that if we were to emerge from those shadows, then it is in those shadows that we must leave our beliefs.”
Speaking to the actions of his opponents, who has claimed Mamd
